The Importance of a Future State
Hebrews 9:27
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.
The scope of the chapter: to show how the things of the law and first covenant were types [and] shadows of things under the gospel state, and how much more excellent the antitypes.
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(3) Let such persons consider, what would be their thoughts of another world if they were upon their deathbeds and just ready to fetch their last breath.
Men generally han't the same thoughts of things when they come to die as when they were in health; especially wicked men's opinions of the things of another world differ, as far as the East is from the West.
Therefore, consider what will be your dying thoughts of these things. You now perhaps look upon death as at a great distance, and that you shall live a long time in the world, and that blinds your eyes; therefore, think with yourself: what if you were now dying? Do you think that it would seem so to you then, as it doth now?
The most atheistical men in the world, some of them, when they have come to lie on a deathbed, have been quite of another mind from what they were in their health. In their health they have thought that there was no world to come, no such thing as hell, have thought that it was nothing but a mere fiction invented to fright folks; but when they lay a-dying, they have been as fully convinced of a hell as if they were actually in it, and some of them have actually felt it before they have been dead.
Therefore, represent to yourselves, as if you were leaving the world, how would it seem to you should you have [had] no suspicion at all that you was going into another world? And if so, believe it now and live accordingly.
Second. Some scarcely ever think anything about it, Psalms 10:4, "God is not in all his thoughts": though they live under the gospel—under the glorious gospel—where the Sun of Righteousness shines right in his eyes, yet they shut their eyes against the light.
Though God should be more in their thoughts than anything else whatsoever; though religion should be the great business of their lives; though they were made for that very end, to think and meditate upon God; though all their thoughts, words and actions should be directed to God through Jesus Christ, and Christianity should be the great spring of everything they do: yet instead of that, they care nothing at all about [God]. They'll allow God no share in their thoughts, words, nor actions, and
though one would wonder how they do to avoid it, yet they hardly ever think anything about religion.
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